Chins and degus need dechlorinated water?

[joshaeus]

Hello everyone! I am considering owning a chinchilla in the near future and need to have a question answered. A number of sites I have read say that chins need dechlorinated water. Is that true? If so, would an aquarium dechlorinator work to dechlorinate the water, or would the dechlorinator itself be harmful to the chin? And finally, does this also apply to degus, if I decide to go that route instead?

[natnat899]

It is advised to give chinchillas bottled or filtered water, and this is because of the bacteria/chemicals in tap water. I am not sure how a dechlorinator works, does it add anything or change the water considerably when it takes out the chlorine?


The members on this forum may be able to give a more advice than I can:

www.chinchillaworld.com/forums/index.php?act=idx

[Maravilla]

If you think to get degus or chinchillas, please don't forget that both need to be kept at least in pairs. So, don't get only one animal.

I don't know where you live and how good the water quality over there is. Do you drink your water from the tap or is it not advisable to do so? Here in Germany, water quality is said to be very good and I don't know anybody who gives bottled water to his animals. Therefore I think it is important to know where you live and how good the water quality actually is. When I lived in Spain, I could drink water from the tap in winter but not in summer as due to the high temperatures and the risk of diseases they added chlorine.

[moletteuk]

My degus get tap water, I live in Britain, so it is good quality but is chlorinated.

I believe that if you leave chlorinated tap water to stand for a few hours, the chlorine evaporates off, BUT bacteria and so on will increase as this happens.

I am not familiar with dechlorinators.

[ntg]

You need to leave the water standing for 24 hours in the method molette is describing.

I use tap water as well for my degus (also UK).

[joshaeus]

Chins need to be kept in pairs also? Ok...how big should a cage for a pair of chins be? I was thinking of a 48 by 18 by 36 inch cage, with the 36 being the height.

Our water around here is chlorinated, so I guess if I own either animal I will be leaving the water out to dechlorinate for some time.

[joshaeus]

By the way, I do drink water from my tap. Mostly due to cost more than anything else.

[davx]

Cage size is usually too small for this animals. Even for degus 120 x 50 cm area and 100 cm height is recommended in Germany as minimum requirements for a small group. For chinchillas they recommend about 150 x 70 x 150 cm as this animals need more space than degus and make in contrast to degus big jumps. However many breeders and even common chinchilla owner have smaller cages, but smaller cages prevent chinchillas even more to show and use their natural behaviour.